The Smartest Girl of Her Age
by Vanjalina
Summary: DH ewe. Hogwarts. "My name is Hermione Granger, and if you ask any of my friends they will say that I'm the smartest girl in my age. I'm going to tell you why they're wrong." Sequel/side story to Given and Denied.


My deepest thanks: to Ing-Ing for enthusiastical reading, and to Amber Honley for once again helping me with the beta reading.

This is a sequel, side story, comment to Given and Denied (for disclaimers, see main story), and it will probably make very little sense if you haven't read that one first. If you're interested in the main story I strongly recommend that you start with that one before reading this. This is also a very optional story. Please don't bite my head off, you don't have to accept it as a part of the story if you don't want to. I mostly don't.

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My name is Hermione Granger, and if you ask any of my friends they will tell you that I'm the smartest girl of my age. I'm going to tell you why they're wrong.

I was fifteen first time I started to see some things in a different way. Those eyes were still so cold and disgusted, the mouth still spoke those distasteful words. And seeing that turn on the heel, that straight back, that silken hair... I should have been outraged. I _was_ outraged. But I had to admit, Draco Malfoy was a terribly attractive boy. Not that I would ever dream of telling anyone.

Our sixth year in school was hard for a number of reasons. One of them was Malfoy. Suddenly he had taken a step back and those eyes, they weren't so hard any more. Pained, yes, but not filled with hate. I knew I shouldn't, but a girl can dream, right? Pretty soon I found out that that was a really bad idea, if I wanted to keep some focus on such lesser things as the war. And then Harry's obsession with him began: all the time wanting to talk about him, where he was, what he was doing. I might have been more responsive to his suspicions if I didn't live in a bubble where I tried to erase that blonde boy out of my life. The end of the school year was a definite end though. He had shown his true colours, and this was it. I would never ever want Draco Malfoy again.

I was wrong, of course. A long year on the run was coming, and I tried most fervently to forget about the forbidden boy. Sometimes it worked. Harry really needed me, and I had to admit that Ron and I... yes, there was definitely something there. And Ron, I must say, is an utterly wonderful guy. But he's not Malfoy. So many nights I lay in that tent, looking up in the ceiling and thinking about him. What he was doing, if he was safe, and yes, it's a bit silly, I wondered if he ever thought of me too. I always silently yelled at myself after that, trying to hastily fill my mind with old artefacts and the warm and loving Ron. It took some time, but I did a pretty good job.

And then everything went wrong, we got captured and suddenly he was there. We were standing in his house, and he was closing in on us. Back then I was terribly afraid, I was so sure that this was it, we were going to die now. But it seemed fitting that he should be there, one last time. He only had eyes for Harry, of course, but for the tiniest fraction of a second his eyes flickered to me. Pain, fear, determination, nothing that really mattered. I was standing in front of a man who would most probably take part in my murder, and I was helplessly in love with him.

But we survived, the war went on and was finally ended that spring day. I got a last look at him when he was cowering next to his mother after the battle, and then he was gone. But I had Ron, and we both knew that what we had would last forever if we let it. We came back to school for our last year, after a long summer together. I wanted to believe that _this_ time I would be over my infatuation with this boy. This time Ron would be all I needed and wanted. I kept my eyes strictly away from the Slytherin table through all of the Feast, but when McGonagall called us up he was there, and there was no way of not looking at him. So I did, and I knew that all my determination was quickly crumbling to dust. His face was a bit thinner and carefully controlled, but most important of all it was the face that made me feel alive. I knew that I was looking at him more than I should have done, but I couldn't keep my eyes away. He barely ever looked up, and when he did he definitely didn't meet my eyes.

One thing was slowly tearing me apart as the year started, and that was the girl called Pansy Parkinson. Wherever he went, she was there too. I knew about the Yule Ball of course, but I never thought their relationship would live through the war and all that happened. But there she was, always close, smiling at him and touching him. Of course I would have detested her anyway after what she said in the Great Hall on the day, but seeing her with him made me hate her with an intensity that almost scared me. To make everything worse McGonagall had placed us in the same dormitory, so I had to endure her all day. I must admit that I had very little patience with her.

And so came the day when I finally lost it. She tried pretty early to deny her relationship with Malfoy, but that was just ridiculous, at least it was back then. And then she was standing there, so sure of herself, daring to call me an emotionless monster. Me, emotionless? My feelings where threatening to make me explode, and she... I just had to hit her. And then he came for me. He grabbed me and shook me, and however thrilled I was to be near him I still didn't know what Parkinson had actually said about me. And naturally he had taken her side. I was both irritated and scared, I certainly didn't want him even further away from me. I told him to let me go, and I wished for him to never do it. And then Harry showed up, making him seem to forget all about me, and eventually leaving the room in silence.

I guess I should have understood back then, but I honestly didn't see the possibility. Walking into that room and seeing them pressed against each other... Well it _looked_ like they were kissing, but I never ever believed that the two of them would actually ever want something like that. Still it made me unnecessarily sharp, there was something unusually touching and vulnerable in him, and seeing Harry in such a position triggered my jealousy. I made sure to remind Harry about his girlfriend, and then I took him with me out of there. I didn't want them to decide to kick me out and continue their discussion, whatever it might have been about.

And so Christmas came. We were all going to The Burrow for celebration, and I couldn't help but be carried along with the others expectations and holiday joy. I put all thoughts about my unattainable dream down underground, and prepared to have a wonderful time with Ron and our friends. I must say I had decent results. Harry and Ginny's engagement was a big thing of course, and I knew that next time it was supposed to be me and Ron. My time to swear lifelong faithfulness to a man I loved. My time to give up my dreams about the one I wanted more than anything else.

Of course I was excited like everyone else, but there was always a tiny bit of bitterness present.Now, thinking about it, there was someone less excited than me though. Harry. I was so blind.

But the bliss was short. Suddenly the happy couple had broken up, and the next second Harry stood there among the passing students, being outed as gay. And that is when I really should have understood. I had all the pieces of the puzzle, but I guess I didn't wanted to see. Because more changes were to come.

A lot of people have called this the year of miracles, and I'm sure that it must have been so. How else to explain what happened in Hogwarts' eighth-year class? Harry Potter, the celebrated hero, started to befriend a Death Eater. (Yes, Pansy claimed that he wasn't, but who believes her? Honestly?)And I must say that in a way I was pleased. If he started to spend time with Harry, then maybe he would come to spend time with me too? This was when I started to dream again.

But I guess that I knew back then, on a subconscious level. Not that I knew why, but I just knew that I wished that Malfoy would talk to me, whisper to me, touch me, and seeing him and Harry made the flames of jealousy grow again. I tried to get them apart even, tried to make Harry interested in going back to Ginny. That was a lost cause of course. But I had to try, to do something. A scary feeling was moving inside me, a foreboding of what was to come.

The dreams I had came to an abrupt end though, beginning with the strange event when both Ron and Blaise got kicked out of their own dormitory. Ron left our room in the morning, just to come back with a highly irritated face, inviting me and Parkinson to their dormitory. We walked in silence, Ron irritated, me confused and Parkinson excited, but none of us really sure what was happening. And then we sat there, listening to Harry's attempts to form coherent sentences. Just to be interrupted by the kiss. I could feel something die, painfully, inside me. I was so sure that it was Parkinson that was my rival. But now, with Harry... Was Malfoy gay? This couldn't be, right? It had to be some kind of mistake. I didn't want to think the thought that his preferences made him unattainable to me. And Harry, he wasn't _really_ in love, was he? But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. All the details I had seen but refused to acknowledge; yes, I could see it.

My insides hurt so badly I just wanted to cry and scream, but with all the people around me I did the only thing I could think of. I laughed. I became the loyal friend, the understanding one, the person who is always there and supports consistently. Then I did the hard thing, the thing that had to be done, and I declared to Malfoy's face how little I cared for him. I couldn't help adding a hint that it might change, but I knew that it would never happen. As things seemed then I couldn't let myself get anywhere near to him. But there was still just a chance that this all was a mistake, a joke or some misunderstanding. Right?

And now it's lunch and I'm sitting here in the Great Hall, a bit worried because I can't see them. But then the big doors open and the two boys enter. We can all see them holding hands, and the last of my hopes are crushed.

So I guess I'll just go on down the path that's laid out for me. I'll marry Ron, and I'll make sure to live up to my reputation. No one will be able to say anything but that I had the perfect life, that I got everything I ever wanted. There will never be any trace of the longing for what is forever lost to me. Never. Because my name is Hermione Granger, and I'm the smartest girl of my age.


End file.
